The depth of suffering in care homes in England as Covid hit has been laid bare in a court case exposing “degrading” treatment with residents being “catastrophically let down”.
Care levels at the Temple Court care home in Kettering collapsed so badly in April 2020, when ministers rushed to free up NHS capacity by discharging thousands of people, that residents were left lying in their own faeces, dehydrated, malnourished and suffering necrotic, infected wounds, the Care Quality Commission found. Fifteen of its residents died with Covid in the first weeks of the pandemic.
The case foreshadows the UK Covid-19 public inquiry module on the care sector, which next year will test Matt Hancock’s claim to have thrown “a protective ring around social care”.
The prosecution resulted in a £120,000 fine handed down at Northampton magistrates court last week. The operator, Amicura, apologised but said it had been “acting in the national interest and supporting the NHS by accepting patients discharged from hospitals into care homes under government policy”.
Source: The Guardian, 29 May 2023
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